A Grief that Can't Be Spoken
by yra
Summary: Mamoru tries to remember the friends he has lost...


_Disclaimer: I own no part of either the Sailor Moon franchise, nor the musical Les Miserable. Just borrowing..._

_A/N: READ IT, FOLKS! Sorry, but an explination might be needed. This is from Mamoru's POV, towards the beginning of the first season, before he knows Usagi is Sailor Moon. But I am sticking with the manga idea that Prince Endymion had his own four guardians...you know who they are. The title comes from the song in Les Miserable, "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". For those of you who are reading Heart of Darkness, we will return to our regularly scheduled madness shortly._

I push the spoon around and around in my coffee, and I watch the dark liquid as it swirls. It is like a vortex, like a black hole, and it is sucking me in, ripping my memories free. I've forgotten something. I _know_ I've forgotten something. Someone. There are shadows dancing at the edges of my mind, phantoms with laughter I used to recognize, voices I knew once upon a time. But when I try to grasp them, they fade away, back into the everyday din of strangers that move around me, and leave me again.

Motoki is watching me. He's worried about me. He is a good friend...and I tell him nothing. There are too many things, things I can't explain, things I need to know for myself. Why do I go out at night? Why are there things I do, places I go, that I can't remember? Why do I stare up at the moon and want to cry?

Why do I sit at a table, and turn to speak to someone who has never been there?

I've been on my own my whole life. Why does it feel so strange, so unnatural, now?

I want to leave, to get out of the crush of teenagers and the cacophany of arcade games, to be _alone._ But I'm never alone. They follow me everywhere, these ghosts. Even as I walk down an empty street, I'll hear their footsteps behind me, feel their presence beside me. A voice will speak, like a whisper from a million years ago. I won't understand the words, yet I'll know from just the tone it's a joke, and I'll laugh into the darkness.

But it will only be my laugh.

What I'd give, to remember what it was like to laugh with them...

My friends...

The dreams, though, the dreams have no laughter. There are screams, and there are cries, and there are bodies everywhere, and the air smells of death, and the moon is as red as blood. I stand on top of a white marble dais, with four sets of stairs leading to the top. At my feet, there is a tiny, crumpled body, face down, in a white gown splashed with red. Blood in her golden hair. For her I am crying. I spin around and around, and I shout their names. One to the North, one to the East, one to the South, and one to the West. Four names.

They don't come.

Everytime, I wake up, and they did not come to me.

Why?

There is movement beside me, yanking me back to the present. Motoki, checking my coffee cup, trying to tell me that he is there, if I want to talk. He deserves a better friend.

And me...what do I deserve?

All those dead bodies say I deserve nothing. I should have no one. I failed them, and for that I am cursed to a thousand lifetimes of no friends but my own ghosts.

Sometimes I wish...

I leave while Motoki has his back to me. I set the money on the table, and drift out into the dark.

It's quiet. Maybe tonight I won't feel that pull to rush out into the night, to fly to the side of an angel with golden hair and fierce blue eyes. I could use the rest, but I'm afraid to sleep. Afraid to dream.

I walk for blocks, aimlessly, waiting desperately for that echo of a voice. Slowly, I feel them coming to me. There...there are the footsteps, falling easily into step beside me. I feel the warmth in the air of bodies not there. The street is empty except for me, and I don't feel so lonely now.

Sometimes I wish...I were nothing more than a ghost, too.

A chance turn, and I am back on a street I recognize.

I see figures in front of me, and automatically fall back behind the corner again. But I peek around the building to watch, the way sometimes you can't help but look at a wound, even though it will only hurt more.

Four girls. They are talking, and they are laughing. The one with the hair black as a raven's wing reaches out, seizes a golden pigtail, and gives it a playful tug. There is a shout, and a foot is stomped, and an argument ensues. I hear words like "mean" and "_baka_" and "pyro" and "_odango_". The words are angry, the tone affectionate.

I had that, once.

The girls walk through the door. Their voices disappear.

I realize suddenly I'm back in front of the arcade. I move closer, and watch the girls through the tall windows. They take a table right in front of me. I know the reflection from the lights hides me from their eyes. They are laughing again.

_She_ looks away from her friends, and to the window. There is no way she can see me, but she pauses, and blinks.

I lean forward, and touch the glass.

I want to melt through.

I want to sit at that table with them.

I want to laugh with them.

I want to come in out of the cold.

She blinks again, and I swear she sees me. But someone else speaks, and though she hesitates, she turns away.

I step back.

I look into the glass, and see them behind me.

Four men, my age.  
Golden hair, and amber curls, and copper waves, and a sheet of silver hair.

Blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes, platinum eyes.

But my eyes are the only ones the tears are falling from.

They smile.

A hand is raised, a silent salute, a solemn farewell.

They turn away.

I am standing outside, and I am alone again.


End file.
